Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2014. 05:00 PM.
Location: CERAS Learning Hall, Stanford
David Kirp, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, will be speaking on his new book Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s Schools. David L. Kirp, James D. Marver Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is a policy consultant and former newspaper editor as well as an academic. In his seventeen books and scores of articles in both the popular press and scholarly journals he has tackled some of America’s biggest social problems, including affordable housing, access to health, gender discrimination and AIDS. Throughout his career, his main focus has been on education and children’s policy, from cradle to college and career. His latest book, Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for American Education, has been hailed by reviewers and widely cited by education policy-makers. It has garnered endorsements from across the political spectrum. The book chronicles how Union City, New Jersey, a poor urban school district, has transported Latino immigrant children, many of them undocumented, into the education mainstream: more than 90 percent of those youngsters are graduating from high school and 75 percent are going to college. It takes the reader from a third grade classroom to the superintendent’s office, where the crucial if undramatic system-building gets done, from the schoolhouse to the potent politics of the community. This isn’t just an inspiring story—its lessons can be applied nationwide.
Location: CERAS Learning Hall, Stanford
David Kirp, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, will be speaking on his new book Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s Schools. David L. Kirp, James D. Marver Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is a policy consultant and former newspaper editor as well as an academic. In his seventeen books and scores of articles in both the popular press and scholarly journals he has tackled some of America’s biggest social problems, including affordable housing, access to health, gender discrimination and AIDS. Throughout his career, his main focus has been on education and children’s policy, from cradle to college and career. His latest book, Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for American Education, has been hailed by reviewers and widely cited by education policy-makers. It has garnered endorsements from across the political spectrum. The book chronicles how Union City, New Jersey, a poor urban school district, has transported Latino immigrant children, many of them undocumented, into the education mainstream: more than 90 percent of those youngsters are graduating from high school and 75 percent are going to college. It takes the reader from a third grade classroom to the superintendent’s office, where the crucial if undramatic system-building gets done, from the schoolhouse to the potent politics of the community. This isn’t just an inspiring story—its lessons can be applied nationwide.